They would if the attacks were committed with Automatic Assault Knives.
Well, obviously.
But the real problem is that they so often confuse them with assault cutlery, which are merely semi-automatic but scary looking.
All I know is that my electric knife keeps on cutting until I release the trigger.
That’s quite a whiplash-inducing shift from “we’re being bombarded by tigers! we need more rocks stat!” to “this rock keeps tigers away,” but I will say it’s better than just ignoring the facts about crime rates entirely.
So, given the overwhelming prevalence of knives in the U.S. - even poor people have them! Right on their counters where kids can get to them! - and the claim that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people”, the number of murders by stabbing must far exceed the number of murders by guns, right? I mean, even excluding spree killings, stabbings would be by far the most common method of homicide, percentage-wise, logically, wouldn’t they? Because guns and “gun culture” have nothing to do with it. Right?
There is nothing even vaguely logical in that statement.
Feet are by far the most prevalent form of transport in the US. Even poor people and children have them. Therefore, following your “logic”, by far the most interstate trips must be undertaken by pedestrians.
Rocks were by far the prevalent form of weapon available to people at any point in human history. Even poor people and children had them. Therefore, following your “logic”, by far the most murders must have been done by a rock.
And so ad nauseum. Of course all of these statements are as untrue and invalid as your statement based on your your “logic”.
What you have apparently failed to grasp is that humans are *not *animals. We don’t just conceive of a notion and immediately act upon it using the environment to hand. Humans are capable of planning ahead. We can formulate a hypothetical scenario in our heads and select the appropriate tool for doing that job as envisaged. As such, people will use whatever they feel is the best tool available for the job. They don’t just use whatever is to hand. And as a result of this, the prevalence of a possible tool has very little to do with the usage of it.
It’s possible to wipe your arse with a stick, and everyone has access to sticks. But nobody in the US wipes their arse with a stick because they prefer to wipe using a purpose made toilet paper, even if that means delaying the start of the project and spending time obtaining one. When people had no choice they did indeed wipe with sticks. But that is no longer the case, despite sticks being just as prevalent, because better alternatives are available, That does not man that people today shit any more or any less than they did in the past. It simply means that when they do shit they use paper and not sticks.
And in exactly the same way, the mere prevalence of knives does not allow you to conclude that they must be used for more homicides than guns, because people prefer to commit their homicides using a purpose made firearm, even if that means delaying the start of the project and spending time obtaining one. When people had no choice they did indeed kill with knives. But that is no longer the case, despite knives being just as prevalent, because better alternatives are available, That does not man that people today commit homicide any more or any less than they did in the past. It simply means that when they do kill they use guns and not knives.
Logic means the use of valid reasoning to to reach a valid conclusion. It doesn’t mean stringing together a lot of non-sequiturs to reach a conclusion that you like.
No shit, Einstein. You’re the one who brought up instances of multiple homicides with knives, as if it somehow invalidated gun control advocates’ concerns about the prevalence of guns in our society (FTR, I don’t think gun control’s at all feasible at this point). As you pointed out in your TLDR sociology lesson, guns are much easier tools to use for murder, especially in large numbers, which is precisely what those on the gun control side see as the problem (as well as the types of guns used; most people don’t want to ban knives, but swords might give them pause). Sorry you took sarcasm for the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
75,000 alcohol related deaths each year.
Smoking is good for another 443,000. 49,400 of those are from second hand smoke.
If only there were some other purpose for booze and tobacco besides killing people.
Four times as many people are killed by second hand smoke as there are by gun violence (barring suicide, if it hadn’t been a gun it would have been something else) . How many liberals are soiling their panties trying to get tobacco banned?
No I didn’t dipshit. That was brought up, by a gun control propoenent, 2 days before I even read the thread, and mentioned by no fewer than 6 other posters before I posted here.
How the fuck you figure I brought it up is beyond all reason or sense.
Nonetheless Liberals have banned knives in countries such as Australia and Great Britain. Rest assured, once the terrified pussies succeed in banning guns they will indeed ban knives, just as they have elsewhere in the western world.
Translation: I made an ass of myself applying the most hideously flawed logic to conclude that increasing the number of guns must increase the number of homicides. Now I want to pretend that it was sarcasm. :rolleyes:
Are You serious with this? People are doing nothing??
And btw I really don’t recall any reasonable person talking about banning all guns, it 's just regulating them.
( This - and a similar question in another thread - was in My earlier post to Martin Hyde and for some reason no-one took the bait in either cases:
Are You saying that every deranged psycho should have a right to get a gun ( or whatever they want ) legally and that the price should be paid by innocent people?
Or do you think that only reasonable people should have guns?
Then why the price shouldn’t be paid by the people who want to have those guns. For example by going through training and psychological tests and maybe something else. You bothered for a driving licence, right?
Then everybody would be happy - except for those wackos who won’t pass that psychological evaluation, but what they can do with their bare hands.
As a European I really don’t see why this is such a big problem in the U.S. - You just prove you’re sane enough and You can get a gun, if You fail You don’t get a gun. )
Are you also happy that this apply to all other enshrined rights?
Are you content that the right to free speech only be available to people who have paid thousands for a psych evaluation and training? The right to have an abortion? The right to practice a religion? Are you content that only people who have paid the price of training and psychological tests and maybe something else have the right to freedom of association? How about if the right to vote is only available to people who can afford to pay the price of training and psychological tests?
If you think that asking people to incur such costs to exercise other rights would be an abhorrent abuse of power and a complete negation of the right, then you know the answer to your question. That is the price shouldn’t be paid the people who want to exercise a basic right.
If people have to incur an expense and pass a state approved exam to exercise a right then they do not, in fact, have that right at all.
America is well-and-truly fucked.
Unlike the highly functional nation of South Africa? :dubious:
I know you know tu quoque when you see it. Not that that’s relevant - I wasn’t referring to America’s level of gun crime (which is less than ours) - I was referring to just the existence of people like Martin. A country that has more than a handful of people like that in it, to the point where they influence policy, is well-and-truly fucked.
SA may well be fucked too, for any number of reasons (crime, AIDS, corruption, etc. - although those are all actually improving year-on-year), hell, Oz may be fucked as well, but they’d all be fucked in some different way that isn’t relevant to my statement.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of crowds of innocent people minding their own business. Frequently, it seems.
So you’d admit to no difference between other basic human rights and the right to bear arms? So the rest of the world (the bit that has the other human rights but not America’s 2nd Amendment) are all somehow lacking this fundamental human right? God, we must be such monsters.
I don’t know, how many gun owners are willing to admit that guns don’t belong in public spaces and they should keep their filthy destructive habit to themselves?
A pomegranate by any other name…
Just for the sake of pedantry, humans are animals.
Yes you did, fuckwad. You’re the one who gave cites, as if anyone honestly believed there were no incidents of multiple murders with knives. You can keep arguing it, but we both know the numbers on spree killings for guns vs. knives differ by orders of magnitude, even if the “lamestream media” doesn’t report knifing sprees because they’re all liberal pussies. In any case, it has nothing to do with gun control.
Cite? Judging from the homes I’ve been to in Great Britain (can’t speak to Australia), if they’ve banned knives they’ve done a piss-poor job of enforcing it, because pretty much everyone had a knife set in the kitchen. Or did you mean things like switchblades? 'Cause I’m pretty sure they’re illegal here, too.
Wrong. Translation: Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Arguing apples vs. oranges does nothing to address the concerns of the gun control crowd, of which I am not a member. Unlike you, however, I can see that they might have rational, valid reasons for their position, rather than dismissing them as “liberal pussies who want to take my toys away and enact a fascist state blah blah blah Rush Limbaugh puke”.
Who said anything about thousands of dollars? But few hundred might be fine. If one can afford thousand dollars for a gun, why extra one or two hundreds would be too much, and rather been paid with innocent blood.
On the other hand, free speech doesn’t cause sudden mass killings.
Neither does a right to practice religion.
Or voting.
( Yes, I skipped abortion, but that’s another debate - and if I understand most pro-gun people don’t really want this to be a right ).
But it should be paid by the innocent outsiders who don’t care to have a gun?
If those gun nuts would shoot only each others there really wouldn’t be any problem.
So what if the right to bear arms is in the constitution. It’s not even in the original, it’s just an amendment, not even the first one.
There have been new amendments to 1990’s and they can be repealed, it has happened. It’s not like God wrote it.
( But yes, I realize that as a foreigner I stepped over the line with this last paragraph. It’s just that to almost anybody outside of The U.S. this subject is like hearing martians talk ).
The real problem with those who despise government is that, when given the chance, they govern despicably.
The problem with guns is they attract nutjobs with issues, wanna be heros, and give the power of life and death to anyone with a rage on.
I think your safest approach, as a nation, would be designate a couple of/few states as open, ‘gun toting’ states, and tighten up the laws everywhere else. Your diehard gun nuts can all just move to Texas!